fault: for the greater the number of members which they shall have, the greater shall be their torments; and, therefore, this restoration of members, will serve to increase, not their happiness, but their misery. Merit or demerit is ascribed not to the members, but to the person to whose body they are united: to those, therefore, who shall have done penance, they shall be restored as sources of reward; and to those who shall have contemned it, as instruments of punishment. If the pastor bestow mature consideration on these things, he can never want words or ideas to move the hearts of the faithful, and enkindle in them the flame of piety; that, considering the troubles of this life, they may look forward, with eager expectation, to that blessed glory of the resurrection which awaits the just.
It now remains to explain to the faithful, in an intelligible manner, how the body, when raised from the dead, although substantially the same, shall be different in many respects. To omit other points, the great difference between the state of all bodies when risen from the dead, and what they had previously been, is, that, before the resurrection, they were subject to dis solution; but, when reanimated, they shall all, without distinction of good and bad, be invested with immortality. This admirable restoration of nature is the result of the glorious victory of Christ over death; as it is written, " He shall cast death over death, down headlong for ever;" [1] and, " O Death! I will be thy death;" a words which the Apostle thus explains, " [2] and the enemy death shall be destroyed last;" [3] and St. John, also, says, " Death shall be no more." [4] There is a peculiar congruity in the superiority of the merits of Christ, by which the power of death is overthrown, [5] to the fatal effects of the sin of Adam; and, it is consonant to the divine justice, that the good enjoy endless felicity; whilst the wicked, condemned to everlasting torments, " shall seek death, and shall not find it; shall desire to die, and death shall fly from them." [6] Immortality, therefore, will be common to the good and to the bad.
Moreover, the bodies of the saints when resuscitated, shall be distinguished by certain transcendant endowments, which will ennoble them far beyond their former condition. Amongst these endowments, four are specially mentioned by the Fathers, which they infer from the doctrine of St. Paul, and which are called "qualities." [7]
The first is " impassibility," which shall place them beyond the reach of pain or inconvenience of any sort. Neither the piercing severity of cold, nor the glowing intensity of heat can affect them, nor can the impetuosity of waters hurt them. " It is sown," says the Apostle, "in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption." [8] This quality, the schoolmen call impassibility, not incorruption: in order to distinguish it as a property peculiar to
